Before I begin – I just want to say that whomever thought up the Twitter hashtag of “#hos” to represent “Howl-O-Scream” should’ve been flicked in the ear. Ho’s? Really?

Anyway … I wrote this post on Thursday when I hadn’t quite realized that I could pull in internet from the lobby of the hotel!

Well .. I made it to Orlando for IzeaFest and am currently sitting in my room at the beautiful (and quite tall) Renaissance hotel at Sea World waiting for my phone to connect to the internet. Unfortunately, I can only pull ‘free’ WiFi down in the lobby (for 3 hours … ?) and I’ve been travelling since around 4:00 this morning and am in no way shape of form ready to ‘mingle’ looking like this!

Lisa (my roomate) is speaking on a panel of bloggers today at a meet and greet. But I don’t want to pay to get in (and actually have no clue where it is anyway) so I figure I will jump in the shower and make myself presentable before she gets back and we head out to Busch Gardens’ Howl-O-Scream with a ton of other bloggers and social media geeks (such as ourselves!)

I met up with Courtney at Orlando airport and we shared lunch and a cab to the hotel. I’m thinking her and her roomies (Heather and Heather’s daughter Crystal) are in the same vicinity as Lisa and I – but Courtney can’t remember her room number! Thus begins the insanity that is Izea Fest!

Will write up more updates later! I’m too busy listening to a great panel right now talking about “What Advertisers Want” featuring Brett Bumeter, George Smith, John Andrews, Joseph Jaffe and Zena Weist

October 1st will find me on a plane headed for Orlando, Florida and one of the biggest most awesome-est blogging & social media conferences in the world … IZEA FEST! What the heck is IzeaFest you ask? Well … IzeaFest is an interactive event designed to educate, inform and connect social media enthusiasts. The world’s foremost social media experts will be there, some of the best bloggers will be there and there will even be a few web celebrities (like … Ted Murphy, Brett Bumeter, Drew Bennet, Chris Brogan, Julia Roy, Lucretia Pruitt, Rae Hoffman and Wendy Piersall).

There will be panels teaching everything from ‘what advertisers want’ to ‘social media promotion’ and believe me – you WILL LEARN SOMETHING! I swear I took at least 10 pages worth of notes last year. Along with all that note-taking and learning stuff you also get something WAY better out of IzeaFest. Plenty of time to network with other internet professionals (and not-so professionals! lol …)

I met the most AMAZING people last year and I am proud to call them my friends. I will be attending IzeaFest again this year and am so incredibly excited to see those I met last year and meet tons of new people!

Here are some snapshots from last year …

I met Lisa – serial Mommyblogger and all around awesome chick. She’s my very best bloggy buddy and we will be ‘roomies’ again this year! Believe me – she’s a good girl to have on your side when you get completely drunk at a social media get-together. Just sayin’ … not that I actually do that or anything *shifty eyes* I also met Heather – the lovely lady from Beautiful British Colombia! She’s a doll and a LOT of fun to hang out with! This year Heather and I plan on imbibing in all the Orlando Ice Bar has to offer!

Met and hung out with Drew Bennet (also known as “Ben Spark”) and his gorgeous wife Allison (photo taken by Drew with his cool Xshot camera extender – GET ONE!) along with Heather and Lisa!

Had shots with the Izea Man himself … Ted Murphy! Er … maybe had a few too many shots …

Yes, I guess I was ‘that girl’ who drank too much, put on a princess crown and grabbed everyone (Cass, Marisa, Carrie, Ashley and Alli) for pictures. Hey you know – I had fun … I don’t remember much … but I had fun!

I so wasn’t the only one though.

So yeah … needless to say it was a FUN event and I learned a lot. Believe me – it’s paid off in the long run. This year all my expenses are being covered by either sponsorships or money I’ve made solely online (through my blogs, design work or paid twittering). If you want to learn how to make real money online THIS is the event you need to be at!

Ted just recently posted on the Izea Blog “9 Things You Should Bring to IZEAFest at SeaWorld” and it was such a funny but true article! Bring your face (ew … what a thought Ted!), bring your business cards (I got mine at Staples for like – $30 … or you can check out the minicards at moo.com), bring pants (because apparently there was a question there?), bring sunscreen (it’s Florida people … nuff said), bring your computer (or iphone) because believe me – you will need it to twitter about weird (or awesome) speakers, twitter about who’s wearing what and upload pictures of people kissing alligators or hanging out in elevators).

Also – very important – bring clothes you don’t care about. You WILL get messy if you participate in the IZEAHunt event. Believe me.

Bring pain killers (and bottled water to beat those networking hangovers), bring your camera and bring a GREAT attitude! Because if you are a jerk we WILL be twittering bad things about you AND posting your picture on Flickr! You got me?

Tonight was the party night to kick off Izea Fest! It was held at the Grand Bohemian Hotel and WOW what a HOTEL it was! Very Moulin Rouge feeling … I guess that’s the point though, huh? Anyway … open bar almost the entire time (darn 10 o’clock curfew – Heather and I were very much still raring to go on drinking!) and lots and lots of people to meet. Finally met Ted (and did a shot with him too) and Pete (what an accent!) and also Carrie and Pricillia. All of them were awesome and really really nice. Also met Lisa at the airport (I picked her up and we’re roomies this trip) and also met Drew, Allison, Ally, Marisa, Cass, Colleen, Heather and Heather’s daughter Crystal. I met a ton of other people but names are seriously escaping me right now. It’s late, I’m uploading photos to Flickr and I drank a rum & coke, two apple martini’s, one cosmo and one mojito. I’m a little done for tonight. Tomorrow – the conference (i.e. the LEARNING begins!!)